still working on water in basement.
Lot is FLAT as a fritter. Location Flint, MI w/ frost line 42″.
going to dig down & put french drain in. Do not think that dry well will be satisfactory as recent rains would have flooded well. So plan to use sumppump. Existing house, have sp inside, but plumbing from o/s to in….
Seems leaving pump o/s is best option. However:
1: allowing for service later….. bottom of trench will be prob. 6′ below grade.
2: alarm to let me know when it aint workin
3: best way to run the drain line. do have a ditch 100′ away, but it is pretty flat & fills w/ rain. Also top of ditch seems to be a bit higher on grade than back of yard. Very low slope to rear, but is a slope.
thanks
Replies
i'm not sure this is all correct, but on a habitat house we did a outside pump. run the drain tile into a 16" fiberglass pipe that was down in the ground about nine foot with about a ft of gravel in bottom. it extened 7-10 above ground with a makeshift lid,but had some protection from a porch overhang. the outlet pipe on the sump came up to within 30" of surface and turned and ran out to the curb/street. it had about a 1/8 per ft slope to the street so the water wouldn't stand in pipe and freeze. i thought it looked like a pretty good setup vs. in basement. larry
i'm not sure this is all correct, but on a habitat house we did a outside pump. run the drain tile into a 16" fiberglass pipe that was down in the ground about nine foot with about a ft of gravel in bottom. it extened 7-10 above ground with a makeshift lid,but had some protection from a porch overhang. the outlet pipe on the sump came up to within 30" of surface and turned and ran out to the curb/street. it had about a 1/8 per ft slope to the street so the water wouldn't stand in pipe and freeze. i thought it looked like a pretty good setup vs. in basement. larry
I am concerned about being able to service pump w/o having probs w/ outlet pipe. is 18" enuf to pull up pump w/o over kinking hose? the bottom will prob be 6 - 7' underground. I am small, but not small enough to fit into a 18" pipe LOL
that was a problem with this one,i thought. if you would of needed to service the pump,you would of had to pull the pump up about 6' and cut the pvc because it would hit the overhang. a solution would be to throw a plastic union in so you could just unscrew it. or you could lower a 3 year old down a rope!lol larry
Check out Consumer Reports June 2002.
Consider a battery back-up.
Buy a second pump and keep it around for an emergency replacement.
Keep a hand pump on hand; it seems that power outages seem to often happen when it rains.
OA
I'm not quite clear. You are digging down and installing drain tile all the way around the basement at the footing?
old waterproofing (tar) on o/s of block & poured foundation has deteriorated. getting water in basement thru walls & a couple of cracks in floor. put waterproofed & put french drain on north side to a dry well. now need to do more. But w/ all this water we are having, I feel that a dry well would rather quickly become a "wet well" and pretty useless.
We are currently working on a similar problem with an interior sump pump that has no suitable place to pump because of the lot's poor slope. We will be pumping the sump piping underground to a buried 500 gallon concrete storage tank. There will be a second pump in the tank which will pump the water to the 30" city storm drainage piping in front of the home. The pipe from the storage tank will have pitch so that it drains dry after a pumping session. This is necessary because the storm drain is only 17" below grade and freezing in our small pipe (1 1/2") would be a problem. The tank will be fitted with an alarm, just in case.
carpenter in transition
Seen an exterior sump pump only once.
They basically built a 'pump shaft' out of block alongside foundation, with a manhole cover. Shaft was about 3' square, and bottom of shaft was 2-3' lower than perimeter drain. Outlet pipe ran through wall of shaft below frost to a big drywell about 50' away. This one had redundant pumps, one set a bit higher than the other. Servicing was not too tough due to unions at outlet pipe, and the fact that it was large enough to crawl into it if you had to.
This design is similar to a pumped septic tank.